Memories from the Ash
by The Vigil
Summary: The 13th Doctor remembers where he's seen his face before. Together with Clara he travels back to the place where he saw it first. Long ago, in our history and his. While he sees something horrible, Clara convinces him of something far better.


The world was quiet in the morning light. Where fire, smoke, and ash had consumed the landscape a few days before, only calm remained. Wildlife had not yet returned to what had once been a thriving city. No birds had returned to sing any songs. No deer were grazing where fields and forests used to stretch around the city. Not even an insect had a place to find nourishment. Only the wind moved here, blowing in off the sea to rustle a bit of loose ash atop what was now a mass grave.

But then a new sound started. Faint at first and then growing louder. A wheezing and groaning sound that had been heard on so many planets throughout all of time. The sound grew as it's source began to materialize. Fading in and out was the box with the light on top. A box that brought hope to those who needed it and struck fear into those who wished to do the innocent harm. A big blue box. The TARDIS.

The familiar noise faded the TARDIS stood solidly on the same spot it had been three days earlier. All was silent again for a few moments. Slowly the door began to open and The Doctor stepped out. He had been there on that fateful night, only he had looked much different then. The only similarity to the man he had once been was the sadness drawn across his face.

"Where are we Doctor?" Clara asked, uncertain about her friends sudden sorrow. "You were all excited to bring me here but it seems a bit drab."

He turned his head toward her slightly but kept his eyes fixed upon the sight in front of him as he replied, "I've figured it out, Clara."

"Figured what out?"

"Where I've seen this face before," he answered, raising his eyes to the mountain in the distance.

Clara followed The Doctor's gaze and her face scrunched into a confused, questioning expression, "Doctor, what are you on about? Where are we?"

"Pompeii."

"Pompeii? That was the Roman city with the volcano wasn't it?"

"It was. This is three days after the eruption." He turned his head now to look at her, "Three days after the last time I was here."

She looked at him with mounting confusion. The sadness in his eyes seemed to deepen. Never before had she seen him so sad and alone, "You were here? When the volcano erupted?"

"I'm the reason it erupted." Clara's face went from one of confusion to one of disbelief, "It was a long time ago. Well before you met me."

"And why did you do it?" she asked, not quite sure if she really wanted to know the answer.

"It was a choice. Either blow the volcano or let the Earth be taken over and destroyed. I chose to destroy this city to save the world."

"Doesn't sound like much of a choice."

"No it wasn't," he replied softly, lowering his eyes and turning back to look across at the now quiet mountain.

Clara looked at him for a moment. His face was drawn and his eyes were filled with sadness. She knew there was something else he hadn't yet said, something else that was troubling him more than that choice. Unsure of how to approach it she turned her own eyes to the barren landscape. She tried to picture what it must have been like on that night. The terror the people must have felt as the ground shook and their city was engulfed in ash and fire. The two of them stood there in silence for a moment, Doctor and companion. One trying to understand while the other relived a night so long ago.

"How many died?" Clara asked finally.

"About twenty thousand between the city and the surrounding area," he answered. He knew the real number. He remembered the data scrolling across the screen on the TARDIS as he was getting away.

"Did anyone make it out of the city?"

"Four people."

"Well that's specific," she proclaimed with some surprise as she turned toward him with that questioning look on her face again. "How do you know only four people made it?"

"Because I saved them," he answered without looking toward her. The memory, the choice, still haunted him. When she didn't say anything he knew she wanted to know why, "It was a family that lived here. They bought the TARDIS from a very stupid shop keeper that thought it was his to sell. We had to find this family as quickly as possible to leave. At least I thought so at the time."

"We?"

"My companion and I. Of course she didn't want to leave. Wanted to save everybody and evacuate the city," he chuckled hardheartedly. "After the eruption began we made it back to the TARDIS and the family was huddled against the wall. I ran past them but Donna screamed at me to save them. I told her we couldn't and started to get us away."

"Why did you go back?"

"Donna kept begging me to. She said it wasn't right to leave them like that. That I couldn't leave them like that. I knew that she was right, so I went back. I brought them here, to this very spot, and they watched as everyone they knew died in that horrible night."

Clara frowned as the layers of pain in her friend started to become clear. But she knew there was more, "What about the face then? What's so important about it?"

"The father of the family. This was his face Clara."

"So you chose the face of someone you saved. Why would you do that?"

"It's not as simple as that. I don't get to actively choose what I look like after I regenerate. Maybe my subconscious had something to do with it but I don't know. No Time Lord has ever had a second set of regenerations before. This is entirely new territory."

"But why?" she persisted. "Why would your subconscious choose this face?"

"To remind me."

"Remind you of what?"

"To remind me of who I am. Of what I can do. What I have done. What I set out to do a long time ago. To help people."

"Why this face?" she asked again. "You must have saved thousands or millions in all the years you've been traveling. Why is this face any different?"

"Because Pompeii was a fixed point in time," he turned to look at her again. "And it's the only fixed point that I caused."

"But there must be more, yeah? How does that make this face any more special than all the others that you've seen?"

"It's not the face that is special. It's the event. This," he waved his hand out in front of him at the ruin, "was something I did. Something that couldn't have happened any other way. I was on Trenzalore for a very long time, Clara. I killed thousands of Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Weeping Angels. But here," he looked toward the horizon again, "here I caused the death of thousands of people. Innocent people who had no idea what was happening or why. They didn't deserve to die."

"But you saved that family. You chose to save them when you could have left them behind."

"I did that because of Donna."

"Who is this Donna anyway? You've never mentioned her before."

The Doctor smiled briefly, for the first time since they had arrived. "She was the most important woman in all the Universe."

"Why have I never heard of her then?"

"Nobody has," he answered, frowning again. "Only a few people know what she did."

"What did she do?"

She defeated the Daleks, all on her own." Memories of another far off time ran through his mind, "She never believed she was anything important. I always thought she was brilliant but she never believed it. The Daleks had stolen the Earth and twenty-six other planet. They were going to use the as a power source for something called an Infinity Bomb. It would have wiped out everything. All the stars and planets in every dimension, right down to their very atoms, would have ceased to exist."

"How did Donna stop them?"

"A meta-crisis," he said quietly and he knew she had no idea what he was talking about. "I nearly regenerated but shifted the energy into my severed hand from a previous injury," he got an even more confused look. "Long story, maybe another time. After I did that the Daleks captured us. Donna was trapped in the TARDIS and the Daleks nearly killed them both. I was powerless to save her."

He paused for a moment as the memory of that hopeless feeling came back to him. The fear, the anger, the hatred. "But then something happened," he continued. "For whatever reason she touched that hand. The regeneration energy sparked and the hand grew into a half human version of myself."

"What about Donna? Did she become half Time Lord or something?" she asked jokingly. The Doctor remained serious as he slowly nodded. "No. She became a Time Lord?"

"Sort of. She was still human but her brain became filled with everything I knew. All the knowledge of a Time Lord in a human brain."

"That must be interesting," she said laughing. "Your thoughts floating around in someones head. Don't know if I could handle that. I suppose she was able to do some pretty amazing things when she was done traveling with you though?" He slowly shook his head this time as his frown deepened. "Well that seems an awful waste. Why didn't she do anything with it?"

"I had to block it from her mind. That and every memory of me. Everything she had done while traveling with me."

Why?!" Clara asked, shocked by this revelation.

"Because it would have killed her. Humans aren't meant to have all that knowledge in their mind. Your brains can't contain it. It's like a water balloon when you over fill it. I'm amazed she was able to control it for as long as she did."

"Then why not just remove the information?" she asked loudly. "If she never thought she was anything special then why make her forget the things that made her special? All the things she'd seen?"

"It's not that simple, Clara," he said, slightly elevating his own voice. "It's not like removing a splinter from your finger. Taking memories out of a mind causes damage to everything left behind. Damage that can't be undone. If I had tried I could have put her into a permanent coma."

Clara turned back to face the gray wasteland without saying anything. He knew she was angry but he didn't say anything. That was the only explanation he could give. The only explanation there was. So they stood again in silence looking over the devastation. Echoes of that night returned to his mind and he could picture the fires starting as the lava flowed. The screams of thousands of men, women, and children as they rushed toward anywhere they thought was safe. The ash that fell from the sky, even on this far off hill.

"So what happened to her then?" Clara asked after a few moments had passed. "Did she live the rest of her life never thinking she was anything special?"

"She got married. Beyond that," he sighed, "I don't really know."

"You don't know?" she blurted out with a hint of disgust joining her anger. "Do you know what happens to any of the people that travel with you? Do you just say goodbye and then off you pop without a second thought?"

"I remember all of them," he answered with a bit of anger mixed with pain as he turned and walked away from her a few paces. "Every last person that's traveled with me is locked in my memory, forever. Some of them chose to leave and I let them. I let them live their ordinary lives because that's the way they wanted it."

"It's more than that though," she began, realizing that there was even more to all of his pain. "You're afraid. Afraid that they all just forget about you. That all the crazy adventures will turn into a fading dream to them. Something so impossible that it couldn't have happened." The Doctor stood there with his head down and his fists clenched facing away from her. "Maybe the reason you have this face isn't to remind you of the bad things you had to do. Maybe it's because no one can really forget you. No one can forget the man with the big blue box. No one except for one person that you made forget you."

"What is your point, Clara?" he asked with the pain sounding through his voice a little more. "Should I go back and give her back those memories? That would kill her and I won't do that."

"What if you went at the end?" she asked. He turned slowly back around toward her, his face pinched as if what she was suggesting were madness. "What if she died in a hospital?" she continued. "An old woman, in her final minutes?"

"The pain would be unbearable for her. She wouldn't remember anything before her body shut down under the stress."

"Do you know that for sure?"

He stood there silently. Uncertainty stretched across his face as he contemplated what might actually happen. Would it really kill her any faster? Would she be able to remember anything? Would she even want to remember any of it? "I don't know," he finally answered.

"Then where is the harm in trying?" she pleaded softly, slowly walking toward him. "If she really was your friend then let her remember the great things she did."

"What if it does cause her unbearable pain?" he asked, looking her in the eyes. "What if her life ends in so much suffering just like all the people here?" He gestured out toward where the city once stood in elegance.

"Then at least you tried," she answered in that same soft tone. "You set out to do the right things all those years ago. You can't avoid doing the right thing just because there's a chance of a bad outcome."

He looked at her for a moment longer in thought. "You're doing that thing with your eyes again, making them bigger. It's very disconcerting when you do that."

"So we better be off then," she replied with a smile.

"Yes, I think we better," he replied looking once more across the land toward the volcano. "Don't want your eyes popping out of your head. I can't have a companion with no eyes."

The Doctor turned toward the TARDIS with Clara following him closely. The door shut behind them and the familiar groaning sound started again. The TARDIS began to fade away until the land was quiet again. The little blue box had left the shadow of Mount Vesuvious for the last time.

It reappeared a little more than two thousand years away in a London hospital room. The door opened and The Doctor stood there looking out, hesitantly. It wasn't a large room. There was just enough space for the TARDIS next to the chair and the single bed. He stepped out, his eyes fixed on the frail looking woman in the bed. Where once there was the fire of red hair now remained a thinning silver. Her face had once held so much spirit and stubbornness. Now, as she lay resting, it seemed tired and worn by the years she had lived. He moved to her bedside as Clara stepped out and stood next to the TARDIS.

"What now?" she asked quietly, with a little uncertainty creeping into her voice now that she saw the woman.

"Be ready to run in case this doesn't work," he said without looking at her. It took him a moment to compose himself and brace for the worst. Carefully he sat on the edge of the bed and moved his hands to her temples. He sat there silently, unblocking the memories and adding a few new ones so she'd know who he was. When he finished he removed his hands and sat back, waiting.

Minutes passed like hours as nothing happened. The machines continued to chirp away that her heart was beating but she was still asleep. Ten minutes passed with no change. The Doctor's shoulders began to slump as he feared that he had achieved nothing. Clara was just beginning to move to his side when she stopped suddenly. The old woman began to move gently and her eyes slowly opened to look upon The Doctor.

"Oi, spaceman," she croaked out weakly.

The Doctor looked at her and smiled, "Doctor Donna."

"You got old. Suppose I can't say much. Look at me, on my death bed and all."

"Well," he replied, "time passes for us all in a way."

"Oh don't you start that. Don't think I could take any of your wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey nonsense. I don't think there's time for a lecture from you. Everything you know is in my head so what would be the point anyway."

He let out a low laugh and placed his hand softly on hers, "Did you have a good life?"

"No," she began and he started to sadden, "I lived two brilliant lives." His smile started to return at that and tears started to form in his eyes as she continued, "I had a family and a proper life thanks to you. A happy life. And before that, I traveled through time and space. I saw amazing things."

"You saved the Universe," he chimed in.

"Bloody well right I did. Didn't even get to enjoy that properly. But I did all those things. More than any human could possibly imagine."

"And you were brilliant, Donna. Absolutely brilliant."

"Not without you I wouldn't have been." She coughed a few times before continuing, "I don't think I have much time left, Doctor. Thank you, for everything. And take care of yourself. Don't keep going out on your own. You need someone. Everyone," her voice grew weaker, "everyone needs someone."

"Thank you," The Doctor said as her eyes began to close and her breathing slowed. "It was my privilege, Donna Noble."

Her eyes closed and her breathing stopped. The monitors confirmed that her heart had finally stopped. He sat there looking at his old friend one last time, picturing her as she was. Finally he patted her hand softly and stood up, striding toward the TARDIS. "We should go now, Clara," he said in a solemn voice as he stepped through the door. They were gone before the nurses made it to the room.

The Doctor flipped a few switches on the console, looking for no destination in particular. With a setting locked in he sat in a chair off to the side. Clara watched him for a moment before walking around to him. She had been silent the whole time as he said his goodbye. She had seen something she hadn't seen in some time. Sitting down next to him she said, "You asked me once if you were a good man."

"And you said you didn't know anymore if memory serves."

She nodded, "I did, but I think I just forgot. I think you did too." He looked over at her without saying anything. "You are a great man, Doctor," she continued. "Even great men have to do things they don't like sometimes. That's when we forget how great they are. Great men still need reminded how great they are now and then. So do the people around them."

He looked at her for a while before saying, "That leaves just one question then."

"What question would that be?" she asked, looking at him puzzled.

He smiled for the first time since leaving the hospital and leaped from the chair. "The question is this," he exclaimed. "Where to next, my Impossible Girl?"

 **End**

 _A/N : I do not own any rights to anything in the Doctor Who Universe. I know that this is not likely how they will return to Pompeii in the next series but this is what I would have liked. This is also my first serious attempt at writing so I hope whoever finds this and reads it enjoyed it._


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